Enterprise Systems

This chapter explores enterprise systems and ERP systems (defined below) and discusses the advantages which can accrue from these types of integrated systems (as well as, though to a lesser extent, the cons). Several business processes are described in terms of an integrated enterprise system, and several SAP examples are given.


Components of Enterprise Systems:

  • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - By the way, does anyone know why these integrated enterprise systems have such an undescriptive name? Bonus: Try to find examples of companies that provide these add on services and provide a link to them along with your defintion/description.
  • Third party add-ons
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Customer Self-service (CSS)
  • Sales Force Automation (SFA)
  • Supply Chain Managment (SCM)
  • Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

Enterprise Systems Value Chain:

  • Value Chain
    • Primary Activities--Marketing and sales, production, and logistics.
    • Support Activities--Also called secondary activities. Human resources, information technology (IT), and accounting.
    • Support Activities
  • Organization Value System
    • Upstream Flows--another term for the support/secondary activities (see text pg. 42).
    • Downstream Flows--another term for the primary activities (see text pg. 42).


Event Based Data Capture:

  • Who--Individuals or organizations (also called agents) involved in the event.
  • What--The resources exchanged resulting from the event.
  • Where--Locations: Where does it take place? Where are the resources stored before and after the the event? Where are the agents when the event occurs?
  • When--The time line of procedures necessary to complete the event. Also includes any future procedures or exchanges.


Basic Database Terminology:

  • Characters - "Raw" data
  • Fields - a character or multiple characters that has a specific meaning, for example, a new employee form would contain multiple fields for name, social security, address, pay rate, etc.
  • Records - consist of one or more fields connected that describe an entity.
  • Tables - predefined format of rows and columns consisting of one or more records.
  • Database - a collection of related information used for a defined purpose.


ERP Modules:

(What does SAP call modules today, lets update the terminology); Check out other ERP vendor modules also.
  • Sales and Distribution
  • Materials Management
  • Financial Accounting
  • Controlling and Profitability Analysis
  • Human Resources

ES/ERP Pros:



ES/ERP Cons:


Event-Driven Architecture (EDA):

[[www:about|]]